I think the length had to do with the box office problems. All the theaters around here only had a ~8 pm showing instead of the standard 7 and 9 showings due to length. This hurts. They try throwing an earlier showing but it tends to be before people are out of work so you don't get many people showing up.

Liri wrote:And I didn't see the new PotA because I haven't seen the previous ones in this trio(?) even though I'd heard good things. And I didn't see the earlier ones because I haven't finished the originals. It's missed opportunities all the way down.

I didn't see the first two, but I went and saw that one. I didn't feel lost and thought it was good.

Chen wrote:I think the length had to do with the box office problems. All the theaters around here only had a ~8 pm showing instead of the standard 7 and 9 showings due to length. This hurts. They try throwing an earlier showing but it tends to be before people are out of work so you don't get many people showing up.

And it bears repeating that the film's box office isn't bad at all for what is a very long, rather bleak SF film. It's just that in this instance the film's budget is so big it's doomed to lose money.

"Excuse me Miss, do you like pineapple?"

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying"

Apparently the movie's budget is $150 million and it's made about $230 million so far in the box office. So while it may not be the success they expected it to be, it's definitely not in the negative or a failure.

Zohar wrote:Apparently the movie's budget is $150 million and it's made about $230 million so far in the box office. So while it may not be the success they expected it to be, it's definitely not in the negative or a failure.

That's $150 million production budget. Doesn't include marketing. So $230 could be quite close to breaking even point if a little over. If it doesn't move much past that $230 I'm pretty sure they'll consider it a failure even if it didn't technically lose them money.

Fun fact, Star Wars lost money. Yes. As did Forrest Gump and every Harry Potter movie.

There are several ways they do this, three listed below. There's more, obviously, but I don't know them all.Option 1) Overhead costs added to movie, often rather arbitrarily. This is the least awful option, because overhead does occur, and if a different movie flops the studio needs to make it up somehowOption 2) Marketing budget and so forth includes the bonuses to the studio execs. Movie makes $500m? Well the execs give themselves a $300m bonus, which adds $300m to the cost of the movieOption 3) Every movie is set up as a corporation on it's own, and has to rent and so forth from the parent company. But then the studio also gets to write off the loss on top of this, effectively not just stealing from the artists, but uncle Sam and the public at large.

No one dares stop Hollywood because1) Movies don't need to be made in Hollywood and the more the U.S. clamps down the more scenes will be shot and edited and written in New Zealand2) Congress is in bed with Hollywood far more than they let on3) Cardinal rule of life is never pick fights with people who by ink by the barrel. It's not ink anymore but the rule still applies, and you will learn exactly why pens are a far more dangerous weapon than swords. So Hollywood gets away with it.

However in this case we're not talking about which entity gets to keep the money for a movie, we're talking about box office sales. In a movie like Star Wars, merchandising would also be a huge factor in returns, but I doubt that's true for Blade Runner.

Hollywood accounting can backfire on occasion - the reason there's not been a sequel to Forrest Gump is that the original author, having not seen any of the profits, refused to sell the studio the sequel rights because "I cannot in good conscience allow money to be wasted on a failure".

There are a number of cases where actors either didn't return for the sequel, or only came back after getting a very generous upfront payment - anything rather than letting someone audit the accounts.

And there's a current lawsuit by Sylvester Stallone over the accounting for Demolition Man which some people are hoping may open the floodgates if it goes well.

MachEps wrote:Wasnt the original Blade Runner also not that big of a box-office hit? Do you guys think the sequel has the potential to reach the same cult status as the original in 20 years?

In 1982, there were 428 films released in the US. 2017 will probably end up being around 700-750; I don't know how much of an effect that'll have, but maybe some. It's hard to predict what'll make a movie a future cult classic, but I think the appearance of pushing a budget to its limits is one aspect (that we currently find aesthetically pleasing). I think, too, that Netflix (and other streaming services) and the internet in general have started to homogenize mainstream tastes a lot more and herd them in specific directions. But on the other hand, there's more room for quirky things to find an audience than ever before, so who knows. And many people will explicitly avoid using such services, if only because they think they're being a crust punk.

I don't know if Blade Runner 2049 will be a cult classic one day, but I think it will be remembered at least for being part of Denis Villenueve's career, I can see him being highly acclaimed for years to come.

"Excuse me Miss, do you like pineapple?"

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying"

Magnanimous wrote:It was... alright. Some parts were really good, but this movie felt really bloated and could easily have been a half-hour shorter. It seemed like every single scene had dramatic pauses for effect, with emotional music in the background and characters staring at each other. Which is fine if you do it once or twice in a movie, but by the second half I kept thinking "get on with it!"

Also the treatment of women was definitely a bit skeevy. The character of Joi really didn't have much impact on the plot, and she had basically zero agency. I guess she was meant to be a foil to the female replicants, to make them seem more human?

Nitpick:

Spoiler:

Does the LAPD office not have security cameras? Or security guards? Wallace's assassin lady seemed to just walk in and kill someone (twice!) with no consequences.

I had many of these same issues with it.

The beehive thing seemed thematically related to the zoom in on the flower earlier in the movie. Some sort of "life finds a way" sort of theme? Neither instance at all connects up to the plot, nor does either really make sense on any other level.

Likewise, Joi seemed like she was built up for more relevance to the plot than she ultimately had. Basically, it was the plot to "Her" randomly inserted in a different movie for little effect.

It also felt like the setting was far more sci-fi, and far less cyberpunk. It didn't need the booming inception music. Yeah, some of the shots were pretty, and beautifully framed, but it felt like the movie relied on setting that tone far more so than connecting the imagery into plots. Consider, the original film had a consistent theme of eyes as the window to humanity throughout the whole film, and each of the inclusions made sense in context of the plot. This simply doesn't have an equivalent in the sequel.

I just got back from seeing it. I thought it was pretty good, though it also could’ve been better. I wasn’t a huge fan of the gratuitous nudity. Yeah, it kind of has implications about the culture and stuff, but it seemed out of place — especially when you think about the old one.

Spoiler:

I thought there could’ve been more rain, less snow, and darker clouds. The snow didn’t make a whole lot of sense, even after some kind of unmitigated ecological disaster, and doesn’t really mesh with the original IMO.

I enjoyed the overall story, but the whole part with the memory girl being the replicant child was way too obvious. I mean, why would anybody hide somebody as a boy who continued to live? Also, it should’ve been simple to check for a Y chromosome and see if the faked one was a child. K should have thought of that — I mean, he’s a replicant, and he thought to check for abnormalities in registered births. Besides, trying to disguise the replicant by making the DNA records match those of somebody of the opposite sex doesn’t seem all that smart.

Anyway, I didn’t like how they took away the ambiguity of Deckard being a replicant. I really enjoyed that part of the original movie, and I think elminating much of the ambiguity kind of defeats that aspect of it. Besides, if you are taking the theatrical cut as gospel (though idk why anybody would), there’s less to go on for that theory than in the other cuts.

I also wasn’t a whole fan of how he happened to visit the memory girl and how she happened to be the daughter. The corporation can’t possibly be relying on only a single memory designer, and it seems really unlikely that he’d visit the one that is the replicant daughter.

My other nitpick is with the soundtrack. I liked how it took inspiration from the original, but they missed drawing on one of the motifs that I really liked.

I liked the storyline with JOI and wether or not she was acting on her own agency or on how she’d been programmed. That could’ve been explored more.

There also could’ve been more scenes of the buisiness on the street. I liked those parts of the original with the hustle and the bustle and the chaos of the street slang and all of that. This version of LA seemed a lot more sterile to me than the one of the old film.

Overall though, I enjoyed it. It could’ve used a bit less exposition (but I get why that is necessary — you need to somehow appeal to those who haven’t seen the original). I liked the pacing, costumes, visual effects, cinematography, and soundtrack. I really liked how JOI was slightly transparent — that was neat. It’s definitely not the perfect sequel (not that the original ever needed a sequel!), but it is an interesting exploration into its world. Even sticking with the same plot, it could’ve been done better, but it was a good movie.

Overall, it seemed like they changed the character of the world in the old one a bit too much, but I did like the exploration of that world.

I was glad I got to see it in the theater! I’m happy it was still playing somewhere (the theater was pretty small though). I did kind of expect it to still be in the Alamo Drafthouse, and I’m glad it was. I think it is worth seeing on the big screen, despite my criticisms of it.

Anyway, I didn’t like how they took away the ambiguity of Deckard being a replicant. I really enjoyed that part of the original movie, and I think elminating much of the ambiguity kind of defeats that aspect of it. Besides, if you are taking the theatrical cut as gospel (though idk why anybody would), there’s less to go on for that theory than in the other cuts.

It seems to me they left that ambiguous enough.

Spoiler:

I also wasn’t a whole fan of how he happened to visit the memory girl and how she happened to be the daughter. The corporation can’t possibly be relying on only a single memory designer, and it seems really unlikely that he’d visit the one that is the replicant daughter.

I just don't quite get how that's supposed to work at all.

Spoiler:

So I guess for some reason she decided to create something from her own memories – the whole incinerator business – to implant into replicants, even though her shtick is creatively dreaming up things she never got to experience herself. Fine. But then why shouldn't she tell K, "That memory isn't yours, it happened to someone else" ?

Anyway, I didn’t like how they took away the ambiguity of Deckard being a replicant. I really enjoyed that part of the original movie, and I think elminating much of the ambiguity kind of defeats that aspect of it. Besides, if you are taking the theatrical cut as gospel (though idk why anybody would), there’s less to go on for that theory than in the other cuts.

It seems to me they left that ambiguous enough.

Spoiler:

Well, for me at least, the whole scene between Deckard and Wallace pretty strongly implies that he is one. Plus the whole fact that he’s living in a radioactive wasteland seems to do so as well. Also the fact that he was able to have a kid with a replicant — sure they’re basically human (which is kind of the point) but I really doubt that if they were trying to experiment with breeding rellicants, they’d do so with a human and a replicant.

But know that I’ve had more time to think about the film, it does seem they left it a bit more ambiguous than my initial impression of it.

Jorpho wrote:

Spoiler:

So I guess for some reason she decided to create something from her own memories – the whole incinerator business – to implant into replicants, even though her shtick is creatively dreaming up things she never got to experience herself. Fine. But then why shouldn't she tell K, "That memory isn't yours, it happened to someone else" ?

Spoiler:

I think the reason she couldn’t tell him that is because, if I’m remembering the movie right, it’s illegal to implant actual memories. So, instead, she just tells him that it happened to somebody and wasn’t a created memory. I’m not particularly sure why she chose to use that memory of hers as one to be implanted.

I think it would make sense to draw upon her brief childhood as a basis for memories (I think this is why she’s regarded as one of the best in the business), but I’d’ve though she’d change them more than she did to K’s.

Anyway, I’m still glad I got to see it in the theater. I am interested in seeing it again to look at certain things more closely, but I can wait to do that at home.